CHAPTER XITHE SCOUT THROUGH ALSACE
As soon as it was dark they started southward, following the ridge. Their way took them up hill and down dale, through rugged uplands where they had to travel five miles to advance three, picking their way over the trackless, rocky heights which formed the first foothills of the mighty Alps.
"S'pose we should meet some one?" Archer suggested, as he followed Tom's lead over the rocky ledges.
"Not up here," said Tom. "You can see lights way off south and maybe we'll have to pass through some villages tomorrow night, but not tonight. We'll only do about twelve miles tonight if it keeps up like this."
"S'pose somebody should see us—when we'rre going through a village? We'll tell him we'rre herre to back the Kaiser, hey?"
"S'pose he's a Frenchman that belongs in Alsace," Tom queried.
"Then we'll add onout o' France. We'll say—look out for that rock!—We'll just say we'rre herre to back the Kaiser, and if he looks sourr we'll say;out o' France. Back the Kaiser out o' France. We win either way, see? A fellerr in prison told me General Perrshing wants a lot of men with glass eyes—to peel onions. Look out you don't trip on that root! Herre's anotherr. If you'rre under sixteen what part of the arrmy do they put you in? The infantry, of course. Herre's——"
"Never mind," laughed Tom. "Look where you're stepping."
"What I'm worrying about now," said Archer, his spirits mounting as they made their way southward, "is how we're going to cross the frontierr when we get to it. They've got a big tangled fence of barrbed wirre all along, even across the mountains, to where the battleline cuts in. And it's got a good juicy electric current running through it all the time. If you just touch it—good night!"
"I got an idea," said Tom simply.
"If I could get a piece of that electrified wirre for a souveneerr," mused Archer, "I'd——"
"You'll have a broken head for a souvenir in a minute," said Tom, "if you don't watch where you're going."
"Gee, you've got eyes in your feet," said Archer admiringly.
"Whenever you see a fallen tree," said Tom, "look out for holes. It means the earth is thin and weak all around and couldn't hold the roots."
"It ought to drink buttermilk, hey?" said Archer flippantly, "if it's thin and pale."
"I said thin and weak," said Tom. "Do you ever get tired talking?"
"Sure—same as a phonograph record does."
So they plodded on, encircling areas of towering rock or surmounting them when they were not too high, and always working southward. Tom, who was not unaccustomed to woods and mountains, thought he had never before traversed such a chaotic wilderness. He would have given a good deal for a watch and for some means of knowing how much actual distance they were covering. It was slow, tiresome work.
Every little while he would check their course by the little compass, to see which he often had to light one of their few precious matches.
"One thing surre, we won't meet anybody up herre," said Archer, as he scrambled along. "See those little lights over to the east?"
"Don't worry," said Tom, "that's twenty milesaway. We're all right up here. There were some lights further down too and one over that way but I can't see them now. I guess it's after midnight. Sh-h-h. Listen!"
They stood stark still, Archer gripping Tom's arm.
"It's water trickling," said Tom dully.
"Gee, you had the life scared out of me!" breathed Archer.
A little farther on they came to an abrupt, rocky declivity which crossed their course and in the bottom of which was a swift running stream.
"It's running east," said Tom, listening intently. "I can tell by the ripples."
"Yes, you can!" said Archer contemptuously.
"Sure I can," Tom answered. He held his hand first to his right ear, then to his left. "The long, washy sound comes first when you close your left ear, so I know the water's flowing that way. It's easy," he added.
They kept along the precipitous brink, searching for a place to descend and at last scrambled down and into the shallow stream.
"Didn't I tell you so?" said Tom, laying a twig in the water and watching it as best he could in the dim light. "What's on the east of Alsace, anyway?"
"Another parrt of Gerrmany—Baden," Archer answered.
"I was wondering where this stream goes," Tom said; "let's walk along in it a little way and go up at a different place. They can't track you in the water."
"I betyoucould," said Archer admiringly.
"Let's have a drink and give me a couple of those chicory roots, and I'll show you something," Tom said.
From each chicory root he cut a plug such as one cuts to test the flavor of a watermelon. Then he soaked the roots in the stream. "The inside's softer than the outside," he said, "and it holds the water." After a few moments he replaced the plugs. "Even tomorrow," he added, "they'll be fresh and cool and they'll quench your thirst. Carrots are best but we haven't got any carrots."
About fifty yards down stream they turned out of it and scrambled up a less abrupt hillside and into an area of more or less orderly forest.
"Maybe it's the Black Forest," said Archer; "anyway it's black enough. Look around and you'll probably see some toys—jumping-jacks and things. 'Most all the toys like that arre made in the Black Forest."
"Not here," said Tom; "we won't find anybody in here."
They were indeed entering the less densely wooded region which formed the extreme northern reaches of that mountainous wilderness famed in song and story as the Black Forest. Even here, where it fizzled out on the eastern edge of Alsace, the world-renowned fragrance of its dark and stately fir trees was wafted to them out of the wild and solemn recesses they were approaching.
"I wish I had a map," said Tom.
"We ought to be thankful we've got the compass. If thisisthe Black Forest, you can bet I'm going to get a sooveneer. Gee, isn't it dark! It smells good though, believeme."
They passed on now over land comparatively level, the soft, fragrant needles yielding under their feet, the tall cone-like trees diffusing their resiny, pungent odor. It seemed as if the war must be millions of miles away. The silence was deathlike and the occasional crunching of a cone under their feet startled them as they groped their way in the heavy darkness.
"That looks like an oak ahead," said Archer. "You can see the branches sticking out——"
"Sh-h-h," said Tom, grasping his arm suddenlyand speaking in a tense whisper. "Look—right under it—don't move——"
Archer looked intently and under the low spreading branches he saw a human form with something shiny upon its head. As the two boys paused, awestruck and shaking, it moved ever so slightly.
The fugitives stood rooted to the ground, breathing in quick, short gasps, their hearts pounding in their breasts.
"He didn't see us," whispered Tom, in the faintest whisper. "Wait till there's a breeze and get behind a tree."
When presently the breeze rustled in the tress the two moved cautiously behind two trees.
And the silent figure moved also....
"SH-H-H." SAID TOM IN A TENSE WHISPER. "LOOK--DON'T MOVE." Page 78"SH-H-H." SAID TOM IN A TENSE WHISPER. "LOOK—DON'T MOVE. Page 78"
CHAPTER XIITHE DANCE WITH DEATH
The boys were thoroughly frightened, but they stood absolutely motionless and silent and Tom, at least, retained his presence of mind. They were not close enough together to communicate with each other, nor could they more than distinguish each other's forms pressed against the dark tree trunks.
But the figure, being comparatively in the open, was discernible and Tom, by concentrating his eyes upon it, satisfied himself beyond a doubt that it was a human form—that of a German soldier, he felt sure.
Thanks to his stealth and dexterity, they were apparently undiscovered. He tried to distinguish the bright spot on the cap or helmet, but it was not visible now, and he thought the man must have turned about.
In his alarm it seemed to him that his breathing must be audible miles away. His heart seemed in his throat and likely to choke him with every freshbreath. But he did not stir. Then another little breeze stirred the trees, sounding clear and solemn in the stillness and Tom moved ever so slightly in unison with it, hoping by changing his angle of vision to catch a better glimpse. He could see the bright spot now, the grim figure standing directly facing him in ghostly silence.
No one moved. And there was no sound save the half audible rustle of some tiny creature of the night as it hurried over the cushiony ground.
What did it mean? Who was it, standing there? Some grim Prussian sentinel? Had they, in this remote wilderness, stumbled upon some obscure pass which the all-seeing eye of German militarism had not forgotten? Was there, after all, any hope of escape from these demons of efficiency?
Archer, his chest literally aching from his throbbing breaths, crowded close behind his tree trunk in terror, startled by every fresh stir of the fragrant breeze. It seemed to him, as he looked, that the figure danced a trifle, but doubtless that was only his tense nerves and blinking eyes playing havoc with his imagination.
There was another rustling in the trees, caused by the freshening night breeze which Tom thought smelt of rain. And again the silent figure veeredaround with a kind of mechanical precision, the very perfection of clock-work German discipline, as if to give each point of the compass its allotted moment of attention.
Tom strained his eyes, trying to discover whether that lonely sentinel were standing in a path or where two paths crossed or where some favored view might be had of something far off in the country below. But he could make out nothing.
Suddenly he noticed something large and black among the trees. Its outline was barely discernible against the less solid blackness of the night, and it was obscured by the dark tree branches. But as he looked he thought he could see that it terminated in a little dome, like the police telephone booths on the street corners away home in Bridgeboro. A tiny guardhouse, possibly, or shelter for the solitary sentinel. Perhaps, he thought, this was, after all, a strategic spot which they had unconsciously stumbled into; a secret path to the frontier, maybe.
He remembered now the talk he had heard in the prison camp, of Germany's building roads through obscure places in the direction of the Swiss border for the violation of Swiss neutrality if that should be thought necessary. These roads were shrouded in mystery, but he had heard about them and thethought occurred to him that perhaps these poor Alsatian people—women and children—were being taken to work on these avenues of betrayal and dishonor.
But try as he would, he could discern no suggestion of path, nor any other sign of landmark which might explain the presence of this remote station in the desolate uplands of Alsace. He believed that if they had taken five steps more they would have been discovered and challenged. How to withdraw out of the very jaws of this peril was now the question. He feared that Archer might make an incautious move and end all hope of escape.
Tom watched the solitary figure through the heavy darkness. And he marvelled, as he had marvelled before, at the machine-like perfection of these minions of the Iron Hand. Even in the face of their awful danger and amid the solemnity of the black night, the odd thought came to him that this stiff form turning about like a faithful and tireless weathercock to peer into the darkness roundabout, might be indeed a huge carved toy fresh from the quaint handworkers of the Black Forest.
As he gazed he was sure that this lonely watcher danced a step or two. No laughter or sign of merriment accompanied the grim jig, but he was surethat the solitary German tripped, ever so lightly, with a kind of stiff grace. Then the freshening breeze blew Tom's rebellious hair down over his eyes, and as he brushed it aside he saw the German indeed dancing—there was no doubt of it.
Suddenly a cold shudder ran through him and he stepped out from his concealment as he realized that this uncanny figure was not standing buthangingjust clear of the ground.
CHAPTER XIIITHE PRIZE SAUSAGE
"Come on out, Archy," said Tom with a recklessness which struck terror to poor Archer's very soul. "He won't hurt you—he's dead."
"D-e-a-d!" ejaculated Archer.
"Sure—he's hanging there."
"And all the time I wanted to sneeze," said Archer, laughing in his reaction from fear. "Ebe-nee-zerr, but I had a good scarre!"
Going over to the tree, they saw the ghastly truth. A man wearing a garment something like a Russian blouse, but of the field-gray military shade of the Germans (as well as the boys could make out by the aid of a lighted match) was hanging by his garment which had caught in a low spreading branch of the tree. His feet were just clear of the ground and as the breeze blew he swayed this way and that, the gathering strain upon his garment behind the neck throwing his limp head forward and giving his shoulders a hunched appearance, quite in the mannerof the clog dancer. The German emblem was blazoned upon his blouse and superimposed in shining metal upon the front of his fatigue cap. Even as they paused before him he seemed to bow perfunctorily as if bidding them a ghastly welcome.
Tom's scout instinct impelled him instantly to fall upon the ground in search of enlightening footprints, but there were none and this puzzled him greatly. He felt sure that the man had not been strangled, but had been killed by impact with some heavier branch higher up in the tree; but he must have made footprints before he climbed the tree, and——
Suddenly he jumped to his feet, remembering what he had thought to be a guardhouse. It lay a hundred or more feet beyond the dangling body and as they neared it it lost its sentinel-station aspect altogether.
"Well—what—do you—know about that?" said Archer.
"It's an observation balloon, I'll bet," said Tom. "A Boche sausage! Look for another man before you do anything else—there's always two. If he's around anywhere we might get into trouble yet."
It was a wise thought and characteristic of Tom, but the other man was quite beyond human aid. Helay, mangled out of all semblance to a human being, amid the tangled wreckage of the car.
The fat cigar-shaped envelope of the balloon stood almost upright, and though it looked not the least like a police telephone station now, it was easy to see how, from a distance in the dim light, it might have suggested a little round domed building.
"How do you s'pose it happened?" Archer asked.
"I don't know," said Tom. "It's an observation balloon, that's sure. Maybe it was on its way back from the lines to somewhere or other. Hurry up, let's see what there is; it'll be daylight in two or three hours and we don't want to be hanging around here. They might send a rescue party or something like that, if they know about it."
"Morre likely they don't," said Archer.
"I guess it only happened tonight," said Tom, "or more gas would have leaked out. Let's hunt for the eats and things."
The wreckage of the car proved a veritable treasure-house. There was a flashlight and a telescopic field glass, both of which Tom snatched up with an eagerness which could not have been greater if they had been made of solid gold. In the smashed locker were two good-sized tins of biscuit, a bottle of wine and several small tins of meat. Tom emptied outthe wine and filled the bottle with water out of the five-gallon tank, from which they also refreshed their parched throats. The food they "commandeered" to the full capacity of their ragged pockets.
"And look at this," said Archer, hauling out a blouse such as the hanging German wore; "what d'ye say if I wearr it, hey? And the cap, too? I'll look like an observation ballooner, or whatever you call 'em."
"Good idea," said Tom, "and look!"
"A souveneerr?" cried Archer.
"The bestyouever saw," Tom answered, rooting in the engine tool chest by the aid of the flashlight and hauling out a pair of rubber gloves.
"What good are those?" said Archer, somewhat scornfully.
"What good!They're a passport into Switzerland."
"Do you have to wear rubber gloves in Switzerland?" Archer asked innocently, as he ravenously munched a biscuit.
"No, but you have to wear 'em when you're handling electrified wire," said Tom in his stolid way.
"G-o-o-dnight! We fell in soft, didn't we!"
Indeed, for a couple of hapless, ragged wanderers, subsisting wholly by their wits, they had "fallen insoft." It seemed that the very things needed by two fugitives in a hostile country were the very things needed in an observation balloon. One unpleasant task Tom had to perform, and that was to remove the blouse from the hanging German and don it himself, which he did, not without some shuddering hesitation.
"It's the only thing," he said, "that would make anybody think somebody's been here, and that's just what we've got to look out for. The other things won't be missed, but if anybody should come here and see him hanging there without his coat they'd wonder where it was."
However, this was a remote danger, since probably no one knew of the disaster.
Tom's chief difficulty was in restricting that indefatigable souvenir hunter, Archer, from loading himself down with every conceivable kind of useless but interesting paraphernalia.
"You're just like a tenderfoot when he starts out camping," said Tom. "He takes fancy cushions and a lot of stuff; he'd take a brass bed and a rolltop desk and a couple of pianos if you'd let him," he added, with rather more humor than he usually showed. "All we're going to take is thebiscuits and two cans of meat and the flashlight and the field glass and the bottle, and, let's see——"
"I don't have to leave this dandy ivory cigar-holderr, do I?" Archer interrupted. "We could use it for——"
"Yes, you do, and we're going to leave that cartridge belt, too, so chuck it," ordered Tom. "If anybodyshouldcome up here we don't want 'em to think somebody else was here before 'em. All we're going to take is just what I said—some of the eats, and the flashlight and the field glass and the bottle and the rubber gloves and the pliers and—that's all."
"Not even this dial-faced thing?" pleaded Archer.
"That's a gas gauge or something," said Tom. "Come on now, let's get away from here."
Archer pointed the flashlight and cast a lingering farewell gaze upon a large megaphone. For a brief moment he had wild thoughts of trying to persuade Tom that this would prove a blessing as a hat, shedding the pelting Alsatian rains like a church steeple. But he did not quite dare.
CHAPTER XIVA RISKY DECISION
"Did you notice that Victrola?" Archer asked fondly.
"Yes, it was busted; did you want that, too?"
"We might have used the arm for a chimney if we were building a fire," Archer ventured.
"We'd look nice crawling through these mountains with a Victrola in our arms. The Fritzies always have a lot of that kind of junk with 'em. They had one on the submarine that picked me up that time."
They were both now clad in the semi-military blouses worn by the German "sausage men" and felt that to a casual observer at least they were disguised. It gave them a feeling of security even in these unfrequented highlands. And their little store of food refreshed their spirits and gave them new hope.
What cheered Tom most of all was his precious possession, the rubber gloves, a detail of equipmentwhich every gas-engine mechanic is pretty sure to have, though, he regarded the discovery as a rare find. He was thankful to have found them, for the terrific deadly current which he knew rushed through the formidable wire entanglement along the frontier had haunted him and baffled his wits. It was characteristic of Tom to think and plan far ahead.
All the next day they journeyed through the hills, making a long detour to avoid a hamlet, and meeting no one. And at night, under the close-knit shelter of a great pine tree, they rested their weary bodies and ate the last of their meat and biscuits.
When Tom roused Archer in the morning it was to show him a surprising view. From their wooded height they could look down across a vast tract of open country which extended eastward as far as they could see, running north and south between steep banks. Converging toward it out of the hills they had followed, they could see a bird's-eye panorama of the broadening streams, the trickling beginnings of which they had forded and drunk from, and their eyes followed the majestic water southward until it wound away among the frowning heights which they had all but entered.
"It's the Rhine," said Archer, "and that's the realBlack Forest where it goes. Those mountains are in Baden; now I know."
"Didn't I say there must be a big river over that way?" said Tom. "I knew from the way that ridge went. It's a big one, huh?"
"You said it! Maybe that twig you threw in to see which way it went is floating down the Rhine now. They'll use it in the Black Forest to make a toy out of, maybe."
"I s'pose you'd like to have it for a souvenir."
"If we could make a raft we could sail right down, hey?" queried Archer doubtfully.
Tom shook his head. "It must pass through big cities," he said, "and we're safe in the mountains. Anyway, it flows the other way," he added.
It was not difficult now for them to piece out a fairly accurate map of the locality about them. They were indeed near the eastern edge of Alsace where the Rhine, flowing in a northeasterly direction, separates the "lost province" from the Duchy of Baden. To the south, on the Baden side, the mighty hills rolled away in crowding confusion as far as they could see, and these they knew held that dim, romantic wilderness, the Black Forest, the outskirts of which they had entered.
Directly below the hill on which they rested wasa tiny hamlet nestling in the shadow of the steep ascent, and when Tom climbed a tree for a better view he could see to the southwest close by the river a surging metropolis with countless chimneys sending their black smoke up into the gray early morning sky.
"I bet it's Berrlin," shouted Archer. "Gee, we'll be the firrst to get therre, hey? It might be Berrlin, hey?" he added with less buoyancy, seeing Tom's dry smile.
"It might be New York or Philadelphia," said Tom, "only it ain't. I guess it must be Strassbourg. I heard that was the biggest place in Alsace."
They looked at it through their field glass and decided that it was about twenty miles distant. More to the purpose was the little hamlet scarce half a mile below them, for their provisions were gone and as Tom scanned the country with the glass he could see no streams to the southward converging toward the river. He feared to have to go another twenty-four hours, perhaps, without food and water.
"We got to decide another thing before we go any farther, too," he said. "If we're going to hike into those mountains we've got to cross the river and we'll be outside of Alsace. We won't meet any French people and Frenchy's button won't do us anygood over there. But if we stay on this side we've got to go through open country. I don't know which is better."
They were indeed at a point where they must choose between the doubtful hospitality of Alsace and the safe enveloping welcome of the mountain fastnesses. Like the true scout he was, Tom inclined to the latter.
"Do you notice," he said, looking down through the glass, "that house that looks as if it was whitewashed? It's far away from the others."
Archer took the glass and looking down saw a little white house with a heavy roof of thatch. A tipsy, ramshackle fence surrounded it and in the enclosure several sheep were grazing. The whole poor farm, if such it was, was at the end of a long rustic overgrown lane and quite a distance from the cluster of houses which constituted the hamlet. By scrambling down the rugged hillside one could reach this house without entering the hamlet at all.
"If I dared, I'd make the break," said Tom.
"Suppose they should be Gerrmans living therre?" Archer suggested. "I wouldn't risk it. Can't you see therre's a German flag on a flagpole?"
"That's just it," said Tom. "If I knew they were French people I could show them Frenchy's button.If I was sure this uniform, or whatever you call it, was all right, I'd take a chance."
"It's all right at a distance, anyway," Archer encouraged; "as long as nobody can see yourr face or speak to you."
It was a pretty risky business and both realized it. After three days of successful flight to run into the very jaws of recapture by an ill-considered move was not at all to Tom's liking, yet he felt sure that it would be equally risky to penetrate into that dark wilderness which stretched away toward the Swiss border without first ascertaining something of its extent and character, and what the prospect was of getting through it unseen. Moreover, they were hungry.
Yet it was twilight and the distant river had become a dark ribbon and the outlines of the poor houses below them blurred and indistinct in the gathering darkness before Tom could bring himself to re-enter the haunts of men.
"You stay here," he said, "and I'll go down and pike around. There's one thing, that house is very old and people don't move around here like they do in America. So if I see anything that makes me think the house is French then probably the people are French too."
It was a sensible thought, more dependable indeed than Tom imagined, for in poor Alsace and Lorraine, of all places, people who loved their homes enough to remain in them under foreign despotism would probably continue living in them generation after generation. There is no moving day in Europe.
CHAPTER XVHE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE
It was quite dark when Tom scrambled down and, with his heart beating rapidly, stole cautiously across the hubbly ground toward the dilapidated brush fence which enclosed the place. The disturbing thought occurred to him that where there were sheep there was likely to be a dog, but he would not turn back.
He realized that he was gambling with those hard-won days of freedom, that any minute he might be discovered and seized. But the courage which his training as a scout had given him did not forsake him, and he crossed the fence and stealthily approached the house, which was hardly more than a whitewashed cabin with two small windows, one door and a disheveled roof, entirely too big for it as it seemed to Tom. The odd conceit occurred to him that it ought to be brushed and combed like a shocky head of hair. Within there was a dim light, and protecting each window was arough board shutter, hinged at the top and held open at an angle by a stick.
He crept cautiously up and examined these shutters with minutest care. He even felt of one of them and found it to be old and rotten. Then he felt to see if his precious button was safe in his pocket.
Evidently the dilapidated shutter suggested something to him, for he glanced about as if looking for something else, and seemed encouraged. Now he stole a quick look this way or that to anticipate the approach of any one, and then looked carefully about again.
At last his eyes lit upon the flagpole which was projected diagonally from the house, with the flag, which he knew must be the German flag, depending from it. The distant sight of this flag had quite discouraged Archer's hopes, but Tom knew that the compulsory display of the Teuton colors was no indication of the sentiment of the people.
He was more interested in the rough, home-made flagpole which he ventured to bend a little so as to bring its end within reach. This he examined with a care entirely disproportionate to the importance of the crude, whittled handiwork. He pushed the drooping flag aside rather impatiently as it fell overhis face, and felt of the end of the pole and scrutinized it as best he could in the darkness.
It was roughly carved and intended to be ornamental, swelling into a kind of curved ridge surmounted by a dull, dome-like point. He felt it all over, then cautiously bending the pole down within reach of his mouth, he bit into the wood and deposited the two or three loose splinters in his pocket.
Then he hurried back up the hill to rejoin Archer.
"Let me have the flashlight," he said with rather more excitement than he often showed. And he would say no more till he had examined the little splinter of wood in its glare.
"It's all right," he said; "we're safe in going there. See this? It's a splinter from the flagpole——"
"A souveneerr!" Archer interrupted.
"There you go again," said Tom. "Who's talking about souvenirs? See how white and fresh the wood is—look. That's off the end of the pole where it's carved into kind of a fancy topknot. And it was whittled inside of a year."
"Icould whittle it inside of an hour," said Archer.
"I mean it was whittled not longer than a year ago, 'cause even the weather hasn't got into it yet.And it's whittled like a fleur-de-lis—kind of," Tom added triumphantly.
"Why didn't you bring the whole of it?"
"When they were building the shacks at Temple Camp," said Tom, "there was a carpenter who was a Frenchman. I was good friends with him and he told me a lot of stuff. He always had some wine in his dinner pail. He showed me how French carpenters nail shingles. Instead of keeping the nails in their mouths like other carpenters do, they keep them up their sleeves and they can drop them down into their hands one by one as fast as they need them. They hit 'em four times instead of two—do you know why?"
"To drive 'em in," suggested Archer.
"'Cause in France they don't have cedar shingles, like we do; they have shingles made out of hard wood. And they get so used to hitting the nail four raps that they can't stop it—that's what he said."
"Here's another one," said Archer. "You can't drive a nail with a sponge—no matter how you soak it."
"He told me some other things, too," said Tom, ignoring Archer's flippancy. "He used to talk to me while he was eating his lunch. The way he got started telling me about the different way they dothings in Europe was when he put the shutters on the big shack. He put the hinges at the top 'cause that's always the way they do in France. He said in Italy they put 'em on the left side. In America they put them on the right side—except when they have two.
"So when I saw the shutters on that old house I happened to notice that the hinges were at the top and that made me think it was probably a Frenchman's home."
"Maybe it isn't now even if it was when the shutterrs werre made," said Archer skeptically.
"Then I happened to remember something else that man told me. Maybe you think the fleur-de-lis is only a fancy kind of an emblem, but it ain't. He told me the old monks that used to carve things—no matter what they carved you could always find a cross, or something like a cross in it. 'Cause theythinkthat way, see? The same as sailors always tattoo fishes and ships and things on their arms. He said some places in the Black Forest the toymakers are French peasants and you can always tell if a fancy thing is carved by them on account of the shape of the fleur-de-lis. It ain't that they do it on purpose," he added; "it's because it's in their heads, like. They don't always make regular fleur-de-lis,but they make that kind of curves. He told me a lot about Napoleon, too," he added irrelevantly.
"So when I happened to think about that, I looked around to see if I could find anything to prove it, kind of. It don't make any difference if the German flagison that pole; they'vegotto do that. When I saw the topknot was carved kind of like a fleur-de-lis I knew French people must have made it. And it was only carved lately, too," he added simply, "'cause the wood is fresh."
"Gee whillicums, but you're a peach, Slady!" said Archer ecstatically. "Shall we take a chance?"
"Of course I don't know for sure," Tom added, "but we've got to go by signs—just like Indian signs along a trail. If you pick up an old flint arrowhead you know you're on an Indian trail."
"ChristopherrColumbus!But I'd like to find one of those arrowheads now!" said Archer.
CHAPTER XVITHE WEAVER OF MERNON
But for all these fine deductions, you are not to suppose that Tom and Archer approached the little house without trepidation. The nearer they came to it the less dependable seemed Tom's theory.
"It might be all right in a story book," Archer said, backsliding into dismal apprehensions. But before he had a chance to lose his courage Tom had knocked softly on the door. They could hear a scuffling sound inside and then the door was opened cautiously by a little stooping old man with a pale, deeply wrinkled face, and long, straight white hair. From his ragged peasant's attire he must have been very poor and the primitive furnishings in the dimly lighted room, of which they caught a glimpse, confirmed this impression. But he had a pair of keen blue eyes which scrutinized the travellers rather tremulously, evidently supposing them to be German soldiers.
"What have I done?" he asked fearfully in German.
Tom wasted no time trying to understand him, but bringing forth his iron button he held it out silently.
The effect was electrical; the old man clutched the button eagerly and poured forth a torrent of French as he dragged the boys one after the other into his poor abode and shut the door.
"We're Americans," said Tom. "We can't understand."
"It iss all ze same," said the man. "I will talk in ze American. How you came with ziss button—yess? Who have sent you?"
To Tom's surprise he spoke English better than either Florette or her brother, and the boys were infinitely grateful and relieved to hear their own language spoken in this remote place.
"We are Americans," said Tom. "We escaped from the prison camp across the Alsace border, and we're on our way to the frontier. I knew you were French on account of the fleur-de-lis on the end of your flagpole——"
"And ze button—yess?" the old man urged, interrupting him.
Tom told him the whole story of Frenchy andthe Leteurs, and of how he had come by his little talisman.
"I have fought in zat regiment," the old man said, "many years before you are born. I have seen Alsace lost—yess. If you were Germans I woulddiebefore I would give you food. But I make you true welcome. I have been many years in America. Ah, I have surprise you."
"What is this place?" Archer ventured to ask.
"Ziss is Mernon—out of fifty-two men they take forty-one to ze trenches. My two sons, who are weavers too, they must go. Now they take the women and the young girls."
Further conversation developed the fact that the old man had worked in a silk mill in America for many years and had returned to Alsace and this humble place of his birth only after both of his sons, who like himself were weavers, had been forced into the German service. "If I do not come back and claim my home, it is gone," he said. So he had returned and was working the old hand loom with his aged fingers, here in the place of his birth.
He was greatly interested in the boys' story and gave them freely of his poor store of food which they ate with a relish. Apparently he was not underthe cloud of suspicion or perhaps his age and humble condition and the obscurity and remoteness of his dwelling gave him a certain immunity. In any event, he carried his loathing of the Germans with a fine independence.
"In America," he said, "ze people do not know about ziss—ziss beast. Here weknow. Here in little Mernon our women must work to make ze road down to ze river. Why is zere needed a road to ze river? Why is zere needed ze new road above Basel? To bring back so many prisoners—wounded? Bah! Ziss is what zeysay. Lies! I have been a soldier. Eighty-two years I am old. And much I have travelled. So can I see. What you say in Amerique—make two and two together—yess? Zere will be tramping of soldiers over zese roads to invade little Switzerland. Am I right? If it is necessaire—yess!Necessaire!Faugh!"
This was the first open statement the boys had heard as to the new roads, all of which converged suspiciously in the direction of the Swiss frontier. They were for bringing home German wounded; they were to facilitate internal communication; they were for this, that and the other useful and innocent purpose, but they all ran toward the Swiss border or to some highway which ran thither.
"Ziss is ze last card they have to play—to stab little Switzerland in ze back and break through," the old man said. "In ze south runs a road from ze trench line across to ze Rhine. Near zere I have an old comrade—Blondel. Togezzer we fight side by side, like brothers. When ze boat comes, many times he comes to see me. Ze last time he come he tell me how ze new road goes past his house—all women and young girls working. It comes from ziss other road zat goes from ze trenches over to ze Rhine. South it goes—you see?" he added shrewdly. "So now if you are so clevaire to see a fleur-de-lis where none is intentioned, so zen you can tell, maybe, why will zey build a road zat goes south?"
Tom, fascinated by the old man's sagacity and vehemence, only shook his head.
"Ah, you are not so clevaire to suspect! Ziss is Amerique! Nevaire will she suspect."
Tom did not altogether like this reference to Uncle Sam's gullibility, but he contented himself with believing that it was meant as a thing of the past.
"They can't flim-flam us now," Archer ventured.
"Flam-flim—no," the old man said, with great fervor.
"Maybe that's where they took my friend's sister and his mother," Tom said.
"I will tell you vere zey take them," the old man interrupted. "You know Alsace—no? So! See! I tell you." He approached, poking Tom's chest with his bony finger and screwing up his blue eyes until he seemed a very demon of shrewdness. They wondered if he were altogether sane.
"Nuzzing can zey hide from Melotte," he went on. "Far south, near Basel, zere lives my comrade—Blondel. To him must you show your button—yess. In Norne he lives."
"We'll write that down," said Tom.
"Nuzzing you write down," the old man said sharply, clutching Tom's arm. "In your brain where you are so clevaire—zere you write it. So! You are not so clevaire as Melotte. Now I will show you how you shall find Mam'selle," he went on with a sly wink.
Emptying some wool out of a paper bag, he pressed the wrinkles from the bag with his trembling old hand and bending over the rough table close to the lantern, he drew a map somewhat similar to, though less complete than, the one given here.